Early attempts at producing artificial Christmas trees involved moulding individual twigs in synthetic plastics material so as to simulate the individual pine needles and providing some form of plug and socket connection for joining these individual twigs on to moulded branches. Only very poor simulation of a Christmas tree was provided in that way.
A far more accurate simulation of the pine needles of a Christmas tree is achieved by sandwiching one or more thin strips of plastics sheeting, whose side edges have been severed by a very large number of closely spaced transverse cuts so as to give transverse elements simulating the pine needles, between a pair of wires approximately at the longitudinal centre line of the sandwich and twisting the resulting composite structure from one end to the other. These individual transverse elements closely simulate pine needles and the result is a length of branch or twig which can then be cut to the desired length, and joined at its centre to a main branch formed, for example, by twisting a pair of larger wires. A full branch is formed by providing a number of such twigs spaced along the length of the branch.
In a natural Christmas tree the needles are not strictly transverse to the length of the twig but are inclined outwardly from the stem of the twig and towards the end or tip of the twig. The act of twisting the plastics sheeting between the two wires gives precisely this inclined effect to the transverse elements. Unfortunately this means however that when a length is bent in the middle to provide the pair of twigs held by the twisted wires forming the branch, one twig is an accurate simulation with the simulated pine needles inclined towards the tip of the twig but the other twig has the simulated pine needles oriented away from the tip. Naturally this spoils the accuracy of simulation.
In the branch of an artificial Christmas tree according to the invention a length to be formed into a pair of twigs is formed by twisting the composite structure at the centre of the length relative the two ends. As a result the simulated pine needles on each half are oriented towards the outer ends or what will be the tips of the twigs and the simulation of the resulting artificial Christmas tree to a real tree is enhanced.